SANTA ANA – Transient Kelly Thomas died from a lack of oxygen to his brain caused in part by chest compression and traumatic injuries to his head and face sustained “during the physical altercation with law enforcement officers,” a county pathologist testified Thursday.

Aruna Singhania, who performed an autopsy on Thomas, 37, a day after he died at UCI Medical Center in Orange in July 2011 when his life support was terminated, said Thomas’ death also was caused by bronchial pneumonia.

Singhania said she reached those conclusions in September 2011 after she considered microscopic and toxicological reports, reviewed investigative reports and watched a 33-minute surveillance video that showed Thomas being subdued during a physical confrontation with Fullerton police.

She acknowledged that she observed during her autopsy that Thomas had an enlarged heart when he died, but she insisted he did not suffer a heart attack during the encounter July 5, 2011, at the Fullerton Transportation Center.

“He died with an enlarged heart,” Singhania testified. “He did not die of an enlarged heart.”

Singhania was called to the witness stand by Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas in the third day of testimony in the trial of two former Fullerton police officers charged with homicide in Thomas’ death.

Former officer Manuel Ramos is charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter and faces a potential sentence of 15 years to life in state prison. Prosecutors contend he recklessly escalated a routine encounter with the homeless man and then did nothing to prevent his fellow officers from piling on. Ramos, 39, is the first police officer in Orange County history to face trial on a murder charge for an in-uniform, on-duty incident.

Co-defendant Jay Cicinelli, 41, one of the policemen who joined the melee after a radio transmission asking for assistance, is charged with involuntary manslaughter and assault under color of authority. He is accused of using unlawful force with his Taser, first to jolt Thomas and then to strike him in the face.

Both men have pleaded not guilty.

Neither Michael Schwartz, Cicinelli’s attorney, nor John Barnett, Ramos’ attorney, had cross-examined Singhania by the time Superior Court Judge William Froeberg recessed the trial at noon.

Defense attorneys claimed in their opening statements Monday that the officers were doing their jobs when they confronted Thomas after a dispatcher reported a homeless man trying the handles of parked cars.

The defense also insists that Thomas, who had been living on the streets for years, died of heart disease caused in part by his methamphetamine use.

“Kelly Thomas died of cardiac arrest from overexerting an already diseased heart,” Schwartz said Monday. “He was in a struggle and fight that lasted five full minutes or more, and his heart couldn’t take it.”

Schwartz told the jury Monday that a defense expert will contradict Singhania’s findings on the cause of death.

In his questioning Thursday of Singhania, Barnett tried to suggest that his client did not contribute to Thomas’ chest-compression injuries.

Thomas can be heard screaming in the video even when Ramos has moved to Thomas’ feet, pressing down on them while other officers are on top of the man.

Singhania said even pressing the feet, in conjuction with the other officers holding him down, contributed to Thomas’ chest compression.

“We’re talking about a prolonged period of compression,” she said. “Again, it’s a constellation of injuries, not one single injury.”

In other developments, prosecutors introduced several pictures of Thomas, some taken before his autopsy showing bruises and injuries to his body and two taken at his hospital bed, showing his bloodied and swollen face with a tube running to his mouth.

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